The Labor enquirer., 1887-08-13

Union or--cincinnati, Feb. 22, 1887.
BY request of large number of per-
sons We publish the platform of the Union
Labor Party at Cincinnati:
Preamble-The delegates of the various
industrial and reform political organiza-
tions have assembled from thirty-one
states and territories on this anniversary
of the birth of the "father of his country"
to view the situation of public affairs and
advise proper action. A general discon-
tent prevails on the part of the wealth
producers. Farmers are suffering from
poverty which has forced most of them
to mortgage their estates, and prices of
produce are so low as to offer no relief
except through bankruptcy. Laborers
are sinking into greater and greater de-
pendence. Strikes are resorted to with
out relief, because of the inability of en-
ployers in many cases to pay living wages,
while more and more are driven into the
streets. Business men find collections al
most impossible, meantime hundreds of
millions of idle public money which is
needed for relief is locked up in the
United States treasury in grim mockery
of the distress; land monopoly hourishes
as never known before, and more and
more owners of the soil are daily becom-
ing tenants. Great transportation corpo-
rations still succeed in extorting their
profits upon watered stock through unjust
charges. The United States senate has
become an open scandal, its seats being
purchased by the rich in open defiance of
the popular will. A trifing fisheries dis
pute is seized upon as an excuse for nec-
essary military preparations which are
designed to breed a spirit of war, to ape
European despotism, and to empty the
treasury without paying the public debt
Under these and other alarming condi-
tions We appeal to the people of the
whole country to come out of the old
party organizations, where indifference
to the public welfare is responsible for
this distress, and help us to organize
new political party, not sectional but ma
tional. whose members shall be called
commoners, whose object shall be to re-
peal all class laws in favor of the rich. and
to relieve the distress of our industries
by establishing the following principles:
/. Land-Every human being possesses
natural, inalienable right to sufficient
land for self support, and we desire to Sc
cure to ever industrious citizen home as
the highest result of free institutions. To
this end we desire a graduated land tax
on all land estates, especially those held
for speculative or tenant purpose; the re-
claimation of all unearned land grants;
the immediate opening of Oklahoma to
homestead settlement: the purchase of
all unoccupied Indian lands. and the set
tlement of the various tribes in severalty;
also laws preventing corporations from
acquiring real estate beyond the requir-
ments of their business. and alien owner
ship of land. The system of irrigation,
in states and territories where necessary,
shall be under such public control as shall
secure the free and equitable use of the
waters and franchises to the people.
2. Transportation-The means of com
munication or transportation should be
controlled by the people, as is the United
States postal system, and equitable rates
everywhere established.
3. Mouey-The establishment of ma.
tional monetary system in the interest OF
the producer instead of the SPECTATOR
and usurer by which circulating medium
in necessary quantity and full legal ten